


The Short Route

by SenkoWakimarin



Category: Cable (Comics), Marvel 616, Punisher (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-21 06:17:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19997257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenkoWakimarin/pseuds/SenkoWakimarin
Summary: It's less that Cable doesn't listen to Frank than Cable just not giving a good goddamn.





	The Short Route

**Author's Note:**

> Asked for a random character and a random word while i was blasted out of my skull. One friend suggested Cable, another friend suggested defenestration, and this is the product of that.

Between the two of them, Cable might be the mind-reader, but Frank knows what's going through that brick-head a good minute or so before the asshole says a word. Knows it, processes it, decides he hates it, and so before Cable can do anything more than look at him, Frank says, "Don't you fucking dare, asshole."

For all the fucking good it does him. 

Frank's not a small man. No one would look at him and argue that point. He's six-foot-three and has worked his whole goddamn life to keep himself filled out and solid. It's not really a point of pride so much as it is an unrelenting fact. He's built like the blunt instrument he is, built for the use of excessive force, built to be a weapon if there's none around. 

He's not a small man, Cable's just fucking bigger.

Sometimes that's a plus. Sometimes Cable looks at him just so, that weird dead eye glowing bright, scarred brows hitched up high, and Frank feels the kind of rabbit-fear scurrying animals must feel when a hawk's shadow crosses the sun. Cable looks at him in those moments and Frank's just meat, usable, movable meat, and Frank's mostly past the part where that squirmy, hateful sense of smallness bothers him. 

Point of fact, Cable mostly saves that way of looking at him for the times when Frank's not got anything else to worry too damn much about, after a job when they're both flush with unspent adrenaline and the need for physical outlet outweighs sense. Frank's lost track of how many times they've tangled up in each other by now, how many times they've gotten each other off. 

In that, Cable being bigger is a bonus. Frank doesn't like to admit it, wouldn't ever, no matter the stakes, confess it out loud, but he likes the way Cable boxes him in, pins him down, pushes him out of his own head until he really is nothing but a small, needful thing grasping for anything Cable wants to give. 

It's disgusting, filthy. They've fucked, or close enough for it not to matter, right in the middle of a goddamn battlefield. Never mind that the only witnesses to that depravity were already well past being able to gab about it; it's the principle of the thing, that way they rob each other of control, the way a single look from Cable can be enough to boot Frank back to Neanderthal logic. Hell, worse than Neanderthal probably; some kind of slimy fish-lizard, barely evolved past the water, knowing only that it Wants. 

This ain't that, but it's so goddamn near to it that it makes Frank flighty with nerves. Time and place for everything, right, but how the fuck do you seperate time and place when this in the past is a whole lot like the place they decided was fine enough? 

Cable growls a low laugh, and that rumble is just loud enough for Frank to hear over the crackle of fire. They've got three minutes, by Cable's estimate -- usually pretty fucking accurate, give or take a few breaths -- before the whole building goes boom, thanks to a certain group of idiots' overzealous accumulation of explosives and one specific idiot geek's decision to fight with a goddamn flame thrower. 

On his own, Frank rarely ran into this kind of over complicated bullshit. His world was so much simpler on his own. No idiots with super powers except the occasional run-in with Red, just him and his guns versus criminal scum with theirs. Bullet for bullet, who had better aim; fist for fist, who had the stamina, who had the skill. Easy, simple, explosions were a sometimes deal, not a guaranteed fucking complication to what otherwise would have been a simple fucking --

"I'm not fuckin' kidding, Summers, you goddamn better not --" 

For all the good it does him, he might as well be speaking fucking Dutch. 

There's a very specific feeling to the telekinesis, but Frank can never think of words that work properly to describe it. He's suddenly weightless, lifted off the ground, and that's not the bad part -- sure, his gut does a lazy flip and his heart slams into his throat, but they'd done this a few times, Cable using his weird-ass power to move Frank, lift him to some end. Usually, and again, Frank would never admit this outside the dubious safety of his own head, it's kind of fun. 

The window, thankfully, shatters before he's thrown through it, and it is still _not fun_. He can tell the second the mental hold on him is gone, though again, the words to describe how he feels different don't exist, and he curls protectively, rolling through shattered glass and dirt. He's barely picked himself up, watching Cable float himself effortlessly from the third-story warehouse window, before there's an ungodly BOOM and they're both thrown to the ground, Cable landing in a graceless heap beside Frank, one arm thrown over Frank like that's enough to shield either of them if shrapnel decides to be an issue.

Luckily enough, the first blast doesn't throw anything at them, and they have enough time to regain their feet and put some distance between them and the building before a second, larger explosion rocks the earth. Heat, dry and overwhelming, sucks at their backs as the ground tries to buck them, and Cable has the fucking _gall_ to laugh.

"Glad we took the short route now, aren't you," He laughs, insufferable, and Frank's going to kick his ass later, make him laugh out the other side of his mouth. For now, he just growls and keeps running, throwing a pointed thought to the nosy asshole mind reader.

_You tell a single other person, I will personally make sure the next hit on you succeeds._

Cable's laughter damn near drowns the third explosion.


End file.
